This invention relates to a machine for the continuous fluid-dynamic treatment of group filiform materials, which permits steaming, washing, dyeing, etc., of cords, wicks, belts, threads and the like.
Machines for the treatment of textile materials with fluids under pressure already exist, consisting of a long tubular enclosure having perforated areas covered by a jacket which forms a chamber through which the fluid circulates under pressure in the form of water vapor or some other form, which comes in contact with the textile material to be treated inside the chamber; such machines include means for conveying the textiles. There is another type of machine that requires the simultaneous treatment of two cords, each of them located at one side of the conveyor.
Such machines have the drawback of having to operate with two wicks at the same time and they are very long. Therefore, they require a lot of space for installation, for which reason their penetration of the marketplace is limited.
On the other hand, there are machines for steam treatment of textile materials with only one wick, cord, etc. which have a pressure limitation, because said machines are capable of producing only minimal pressure, due to the fact that the textile material cannot be made sufficiently watertight. For example, there are machines for steam treatment which, when the textile material leaves a crimper, apply the steam treatment with a pressure on the order of 0.2 kg/cm.sup.2, the textile being retained when exiting by a retaining plate. There are also other machines which, when the textile material is exiting the crimper, apply a pressure treatment between two pairs of feed rollers located at both ends of the treatment area, permitting the application of steam pressure on the order of 0.5 kg/cm.sup.2.
As a result of their pressure limitation, the usefulness of these machines is limited because they cannot be used to carry out certain processes, or obtain the necessary results with said processes.
In many cases, in order to subject the textile materials to treatment with fluid under pressure it is not possible to do so directly by simply connecting two machines through a conduit, as in the case of textile materials exiting a crimper, because the textile material to be treated with fluids has a different linear mass in each machine, the crimper preceding machine and the fluid process following.